Time for our favourite Med-jack :)
7. Clint
In a perfectly still silence, Clint tinkered with the makeshift distillery that Dr. Teague had set up at the back of the Infirmary.
When building the Infirmary, they had set aside a small room with a lock for the purpose of locking up the tools and the alcohol. Harriet had made it very clear to everyone that they were not to drink any of it - it was merely for medical purposes. They couldn't afford alcoholism on their already heaping plate of problems.
That received many displeased groans, of course, but Harriet wasn't backing down, and Clint kind of had to agree with her. They were smart enough to know that they shouldn't drink their brains to mush.
Anyways, Dr. Teague was a world-renowned organic chemist and could manage a distillery blindfolded, but he couldn't live forever, so he had decided that it would be best if he trained the leaders of the Medics to manage the distillery. Clint had been fine with the idea, but Dora had been vehemently against learning how to make alcohol - something about wanting to keep far away from the substance. She had recommended Brenda, instead.
So that was how Clint found himself cooped up inside, on a perfectly sunny day, managing a rather crude distillery with Dr. Teague watching him closely.
"That's it..." Dr. Teague encouraged quietly. "Perfect. You'd think you've been doing this for your whole life!"
Clint snorted and said, "You could say that."
Dr. Teague's face fell as he realized he had made a poor choice of words.
Clint didn't really notice. His eyes were glazed over, his thoughts elsewhere.
He is twelve years old. The room he is in is all white, and the only colour comes from the blue glow of the computer screens on the glass walls and the fluorescent bulbs above his head.
He stands at a table with some parts in front of him. He recognizes them as different types of chemistry lab equipment, and his hands are assembling them in a certain manner. There is another person in the room - a much older man with thick glasses - standing on the other side of the table. He is closely watching each and every one of his moves.
"Easy does it, Clint... perfect!"
He steps back and looks at his work. He's been in there for a couple hours. There are papers with sketches and notes strewn across the floor, all of the sketches resembling the structure he has built with the lab equipment. A distillery.
"All right then, Clint," the man says. "Now, tell me four facts about ethanol."
"It's a psychoactive drug, it can be used as a disinfectant, it can be used as a sedative, and..." he trails off, racking his mind for another fact. He knows the man doesn't want just any fact, so he tries to pick out the one he thinks the man will like most. "It is released by yeast during anaerobic cellular respiration."
"Brilliant!" the man praises. "Now, tell me why methanol is more harmful to humans than ethanol, including a description of its oxidation."
He recites the two oxidation steps of methanol, leading to formic acid. The words are automatic. This is something he just knows, like he knows that the sky is blue and Santa Claus is a fairytale and dental hygiene is important.
He continues to talk about the harmful effects of each of the three substances - methanol, formaldehyde, and formic acid - on the human body, as well as the metabolization of ethanol, until he doesn't have a single fact left in him.
The old man smiles at the end and says, "Well done. Off to lunch with you. And remember: WICKED is good."
"Clint? You okay?"
Clint snapped out of his thoughts at the sound of Dr. Teague's voice and turned to the middle aged man with a forced smile.
"Yeah, peachy," Clint replied. "Just thinking about, you know, memories."
Dr. Teague nodded and gave Clint a sympathetic look. "You know, you have friends to help you with that burden," he said with a concerned tone.
Clint nodded, trying to take Dr. Teague's words to heart. However, he couldn't help but think that however the man assumed Clint felt didn't even skim the surface of how he actually felt.
It hurt to realize that everything he was - from his skills to his personality - was shaped by WICKED. The very people that kicked his ass into a shucking box and sent him into the Maze. The people that forced him to trek across the Scorch. The people that took Alby, Chuck, Jackson, Newt...
He had them to thank for who he was, and that thought sickened him.
A knock on the door pulled Clint out of his trance. He looked up to see Brenda standing in the doorway.
"I'm ready to become a moonshiner," Brenda declared with a joking tone and a smile.
Clint returned her smile, but Dr. Teague was having none of her jesting. "Now, now, Brenda. I am a very well-educated organic chemist, not a moonshiner. Moonshiners are so crude in their making of alcohol. What I do is, more or less, an art."
"All right, Fredrik, don't get your panties in a twist," Brenda said as she put her hands in front of her in mock surrender. "Just kidding around with you."
"Yes, I'll say. Me? A moonshiner? Quite the joke," Dr. Teague said in agreement. He turned to Clint and added, "You're off for today, bud."
Clint stood up and shook hands with the doctor, however, just as he was turning to leave, he got startled by a sudden outburst.
"You are such an idiot!"
Clint looked to Brenda in confusion. "What's going on out there?" he asked.
Brenda seemed to be trying very hard to hide her laughter. "Minho tripped in the dinner queue and broke his wrist, so Dora's yelling at him for wasting her resources on such a stupid injury."
"Tripping in the dinner queue? What kind of stupid stick are you?"
"Sounds like Dora."
"What is it with you girls and calling people sticks? That's shucking stupid!"
"As if shank is so much better! What, you gonna shank me in my sleep, shank?"
That was the last straw. Both Brenda and Clint doubled over in laughter, and even Dr. Teague joined in with a quiet chuckle.
There you have it!
Sneak peek of next chapter:
She is five years old and the sky is burning.
Her and the rest of the girls in the girls' dormitory at St. Margaret's Orphanage crowd around the window to get a peek of the strange colour of the sun.
Their fascination is short-lived, however, as the urgency and panic etched onto the faces of Sister Nancy and Sister Tina makes the young girls realize that there is something terribly wrong.